


it goes like this --

by Areiton



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (IT'S FINALLY A TAG OMG YAY!!), Alternate Universe, Background Bucky Barnes/Pepper Potts, Bodyguard Steve Rogers, Getting Together, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Multi, Older steve rogers, Recreational Drug Use, Self-Destructive Behavior, Silver Fox Steve Rogers, Sugar Daddy Tony Stark, Tony Stark is a Twink, Tony Stark/Others - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:08:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29599458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: It goes like this, really--He wants Tony.He wants him like he needs air to breath, wants to wipe away all the ones who came before him with mouth and tongue and bruise tight hands.He wants Tony and he’sterrified.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 22
Kudos: 280





	it goes like this --

**Author's Note:**

> This is all Twitter's fault, blame [this](https://twitter.com/areiton_/status/1362530430122082309?s=20) and everyone who encouraged me.   
> Couple notes:   
> 1\. Tony is a trainwreck.   
> 2\. There is some Tony/Others but it's endgame Steve/Tony.   
> 3\. I played with a style in this I'm still not sure I pulled off but I think I like it so *shrug*

It goes like this, some nights--

The music is loud enough he can feel it in his teeth. He’d stand out, except he started dressing different a few weeks into the job, in distressed jeans and tight white tshirts that still don’t fit here, or wouldn’t, if he didn’t wear them skinny and too tight, and that caused it’s own set of issues, but Steve is going to think about the way Tony’s eyes would linger, too hot, on his crotch and ass. 

He got the SOS from Rhodes an hour ago, and he’s been cooling his heels in the VIP room, watching and here’s the thing--

He’s paid good fucking money to watch Tony Stark, to make sure the little brat didn’t get himself killed, and sometimes Steve wanted to do the job himself, because Tony could try the patience of a saint, but then there was this--

Tony in skinny jeans and a mesh shirt, his body gold gleaming and lithe and the hint of steel in his nipple that Steve knows damn well isn’t his only piercing. Tony with heavily lined eyes watching him while he danced, a dirty bump and grind with some nameless girl sucking a bruise on his long throat. 

He’s paid good fucking money to watch Tony Stark, to make sure the little brat didn’t get himself killed and sometimes Steve was sure he’d do it for free. 

~*~ 

It goes like this, to start--

There were threats, but there were always threats, because Tony was Tony and he was obscenely rich, annoyingly bratty, astoundingly brilliant, unexpectedly kind, devastatingly rude. There were threats and Pepper wanted to hire a bodyguard and Tony shut that down with a disbelieving cackle and it was fine, except  _ then _ there were threats against Pepper, and Tony demanded a bodyguard and Pepper caved, too quick, with a stipulation. 

Tony bitched long and loud but he’d agreed and Natasha hired quick, called in a favor from the Captain and Soldier, two men she’d served with before she went into private security and was hired as head of security for Stark Industries. 

Tony bitched, but quiet because Pepper and Natasha terrified him and then he walked into the room and the bitching ended real quick. 

Steve Rogers never heard any of that, but Tasha sits on his couch--the one in his suite in the penthouse, because it’s a round the clock gig and Tony doesn’t do anything by half measures, so instead of a bed and a bathroom, he gets four fucking rooms and en suite--and tells him all about it, a shit eating grin on her pretty face, and Steve remembers just why he never agreed to do Tasha favors. 

~*~ 

It goes like this, some nights--

He follows Tony to the back of a club, to the back of a party, to a dirty alley. 

Sometimes he finds him on his knees, sometimes there’s a pretty pair of legs wrapped around his waist and a mewling whine in the air. 

Sometimes he’s got some beefy blonde gagging on his cock, and his head thrown back in adoration. 

Once, he was being shoved face first into the bricks and whining, all distress and no pleasure and it's his job, to know that, to know when Tony is being  _ hurt  _ and when his moans are just the pretty sounds of pleasure Steve doesn’t want to hear being drawn out by other people. 

He left that guy with a broken nose and a few broken fingers, dragged Tony to the car and snapped at Happy to drive them home. 

He’d cleaned Tony up, the traces of coke under his nose, the tears and scrapes on his face and when he’d started shaking, spitting broken curses between silent tears, he’d held Tony close. 

~*~ 

It goes like this, after-- 

After he catches Tony with those red-headed twins, naked and gorgeous and balls deep in one while the other kissed him--he came to work and found a suit, a black Tom Ford, double breasted, with a crimson tie. 

After he finds Tony doing coke in the workshop and they scream at each other, after he threatens to quit and Tony threatens to fire him--he came to work and found a Zenga. 

After the weekend Tony vanished with Stone, when he came home pale faced and bruised and silent, to find Steve out of his fucking mind, so scared he couldn’t even be angry, just put Tony in a bath and into bed and sat there all night, listening to Tony’s teeth chatter--he came to work and found a handgun he’d never seen before, something he knew Tony designed. 

There was a new shoulder holster when Tony locked him out of the workshop, a pair of blades he could tuck into his boots when Tony lied about a board meeting and played hooky with Rhodey, a new leather coat when he slipped Steve’s care and ended up on a stage doing burlesque during a tech conference in London. 

There were other things too. A thin, bulletproof vest that Tony shyly confessed to having designed. A set of books Steve mentioned he hadn’t read. Art supplies he finds in the workshop. More guns than he knows what to do with, a sweater so soft he almost doesn’t believe it’s real, a laptop because he mentioned that his was fried. 

For his birthday, Tony gives him a vintage Harley that he sits on in nothing but his faded dirty jeans and tight tank top--the workshop clothes that Steve has never told him he adores, because Tony is beautiful and impossibly young and not _ his _ , even if he wishes otherwise. 

Tony sits on a dream of a bike, grinning and prettier than a wet dream and Steve has to remind himself  _ why _ he isn’t fucking his protectee. 

~*~ 

It goes like this, most nights-- 

He sits in the workshop and Tony  _ creates.  _

It’s not his favorite way of seeing Tony but it’s close. He loves to see the glow of holoscreens on Tony’s face, loves to listen to him bicker with JARVIS, loves the grumpy glares shot in his direction when he throws a ball and sends DUM-E racing after it. 

It’s not his favorite way of seeing Tony but it’s better than the pretty twink and the suave businessman, because Tony is alive here, real here, none of the false smiles and practiced charm, none of the drugs he uses to keep people close and at a distance, like this he’s raw and beautiful and so utterly captivating Steve’s fingers itch to touch and he draws instead. 

~*~ 

It goes like this, between them--

Tony flirts. 

Tony flirts like  _ breathing _ and he smiles and dismisses it because he’s a busted up soldier stripped of his pension after disobeying orders, he lives with his best friend and has nightmares and no fucking buisness being the protection detail to a boy as brilliant as Tony, but then he can’t dismiss it because there’s not just the flirting. 

There’s the way Tony will watch him, in the clubs, hands on a pretty girl, being dry humped by a big beefy dude, eyes hot and hungry and defiant.

There’s the way Tony will prance around the townhouse in a button down he steals from Steve’s laundry basket, a button holding the oversized thing on, red panties a teasing flash, and Steve thinks he could reach out, catch that lithe body and tug him in close, and Tony would  _ let  _ him. 

Tony would  _ beg  _ for more. 

It’s that thought, more than any other, that keeps him from ever reaching out, even if Tony’s pout is pretty and heartbreaking, both. 

~*~ 

It goes like this, for a long time--

Tony flirts. And Steve says  _ no.  _

Tony fucks other people. And Steve says  _ no.  _

Tony buys him presents, apology gifts and trinkets because of the way Steve smiles, soft and pleased, over them, and Steve--Steve never says no to those, because he knows Tony, knows he shows his affection with gifts, and even as strong willed as he is, he can’t handle the broken-hearted stare and days of quiet, the one time he refused one of Tony’s presents. 

Tony flirts and he fucks and sometimes he gets downright reckless and Steve--Steve picks him, drags him back, puts him together again, and when they’re tucked back into the townhouse, Tony leans into him and it’s not what he wants, what he lets himself want, in the quiet of his own mind, but it’s--it’s close. 

~*~ 

It goes like this, after--

He watches Tony. 

It’s his job to watch Tony, to keep him safe, and he follows the boy, in slick leather, through a dark club filled with the wet sound of sex and watches him  _ kneel _ for Maya Hansen. 

It’s his job to watch Tony, to keep him safe, and he watches while Vanko fucks him, hands bruising while Tony begs for  _ more.  _

It’s his job to watch Tony, to keep him safe, and he watches, and he watches, and when they go home and Tony invites him to his bed and Steve sends him there alone, he retreats to his own bed, and curls a hand around his aching cock and stripes it, ruthless and aching, and comes, body aching and arms empty and it’s not enough but it’s all he’s willing to take. 

~*~ 

It goes like this, sometimes--

Pepper will come over, Bucky trailing in her wake, and will curl on the couch with a glass of wine, will gossip with Steve about art and Tony. Bucky will flirt with Tony because Bucky’s been a flirt since he was eight years old and charming Dottie on the playground and it’s just his way, to let his voice go lazy and sweet and his comments go sly and teasing. Tony answers easy as breathing, and it’s a kind of comforting, having them both here in the same place, Pepper watching with eyes that go stormy the longer the teasing and flirting goes on, until she’s snapping and Bucky twists to her, a needle pointing north, a smile that’s hot and pleased and  _ different _ on his lips. 

She gets bossy, snappy, and he answers with that honey sweet drawl that isn’t quite as practiced and perfect as the one he uses on anyone else, calls her  _ ma’am  _ and  _ sweetheart  _ and follows, docile as a lamb, when she sweeps out, barely giving Tony a goodbye. 

“She’s gone on him,” Tony says, once, and Steve smiles, because it’s mutual, is the thing, and it’s only a matter of time before Natasha has to find a new protection detail for Pepper. 

~*~ 

It goes like this, but not often--

They fight. 

They fight over the drugs, they fight over the fucking, and when Tony locks Steve out of the workshop for thirty-six straight hours, Steve hands in his notice and walks off the to because some things can’t be fixed with an expensive present. 

Tony chases him, sometimes, when he’s fucked up and coaxes Steve back, and he’s weak and shouldn’t be guarding this trainwreck twink of a boy, but he can’t walk away either. 

Steve never chases Tony, but he apologizes in small ways, with coffee and donuts and sketches of DUM-E, until Tony comes and curls next to him. 

~*~ 

It goes like this, on the best nights - 

Tony doesn’t work. 

He doesn’t go out. 

He curls up in soft sweat pants and one of the many shirts he’s stolen from Rhodes and they bicker over takeout and turn on Fringe so Tony can shout at bad science and he curls against Steve’s side, warm and sleepy and happy, and falls asleep there, and he’s brilliantly beautiful, young and raw and vulnerable and it’s this Tony that Steve loves most, this Tony he wants to keep safe and fuck dirty and spend the rest of his life with. 

~*~ 

It goes like this, once--

They’re out, Rhodes is watching Tony dance with Pepper but the sharks are already circling and Tony’s shooting him these heavy inviting smiles that he’s pointedly ignoring and Rhodes snorts, snaps Steve’s gaze away from Tony to his best friend, for a heartbeat. 

“You ever gonna put him outta his misery?” Rhodes asks and Steve’s jaw tightens. 

“He deserves--”

“He ain’t gonna quit,” Rhodes interrupts. “You know, he fought Howard for ten years for that fucking Roadster, and even after the will was read, Tony didn’t give up, he just bought it off Stane. He’s not the kind to give up, when he’s decided he wants something.” 

“He doesn’t need a busted up soldier, Rhodes.” 

“Maybe not, but I guarantee you this, Rogers--you’re better for him than any of the assholes he’s got using him right now. He’ll quit--the parties and drugs and all the fuckers who only see his bank account when they fuck him. If you say the word, he’d quit it all.” Rhodes sighs and shakes his head. “You aren’t protecting him by keeping him at arms length, Rogers. You wanna keep Tones safe, you gotta keep him close, tucked up so tight whatever hurts him hurts you too--because he’ll never let anything hurt you.”

“Is that right?” 

“It’s how I’ve kept him safe,” Rhodes says, shrugging, something dark in his gaze. He takes a shot of tequila and smiles, sharp and mean, all banked fury and Steve doesn’t quite shiver, but it’s a near thing. 

~*~ 

It goes like this, really--

He wants Tony. 

He wants him like he needs air to breath, wants to wipe away all the ones who came before him with mouth and tongue and bruise tight hands. 

He wants Tony and he’s  _ terrified.  _

~*~ 

It goes like this, wrong in an instant--

The convoy goes up in a wash of explosions and hail of gunfire and Tony’s panicked voice, screaming  _ Rhodes! _

The convoy goes up and Tony is at his back, bloody but whole, clinging with one hand, another wrapped around of the guns Tony gave him and they shoot their way out. 

The convoy goes up and they  _ run, _ because Tony is fighting, desperate to get to Rhodes, but there are insurgents and there are nightmares and Tony is bleeding in his arms, and he needs to keep him  _ safe.  _

The convoy goes up and they run and he thinks, for just a moment, it’ll be enough--

He’s wrong. 

~*~ 

It goes like this, in the cave-- 

Tony says no. 

They tie him up and he screams against his gag and Tony trembles and trashes in their arms, but he never falters, his no steady and unflinching--

And then they turn on Steve, a hot poker and cables attached to a car battery and he folds, crumples like tissue paper, sobbing and begging and Steve’s heart beats hard in his chest, because they are grinning, the men who hold them, and he can’t protect Tony if he’s Tony’s biggest weakness. 

Tony crumples when they torture him and says, anything, anything, anything, and Steve can’t breathe, because he can see it, the ugly truth in Tony’s eyes. 

He means it. 

He’d do anything, to keep Steve safe. 

~*~ 

It goes like this, in the cave--

He said  _ anything _ and they believed it. 

He said  _ anything  _ and Steve did too. 

He said  _ anything  _ and they gave him tools to build and weapons to scavenge and Steve to assist and Tony’s smile went dark and bitter and cunning. 

He said,  _ anything, I’ll do anything _ and Steve doesn’t know what that means, until he does. 

~*~ 

It goes like this, in the cave-

Tony curls next to him in a narrow bed, for warmth and comfort and whispers in his ear, a plan that’s impossible and fantastical and Steve believes him. 

Tony works, the kind of reckless intent he’s seen on the worst of his workshop binges, but not there’s a desperation, here, a kind of franticness that’s driven by the danger that’s surrounding them both. 

Tony works and when it’s done, when he slumps over the table and lets Steve lead him to bed, he shivers with fatigue and cold and aching muscles and says softly, “If we don’t make it--”

“We will,” Steve promises, but he can’t promise because he’s useless, here. 

“If we don’t--” Tony says, and his fingers are pressed against Steve’s lips, to silence his protest, “I need you to know I love you.” 

Steve stares at him, helpless, and Tony smiles, too tired to be anything but real. 

“When we make it,” Steve whispers into his hair and Tony shudders in is arms, “I’m going to kiss you and take you to bed.” 

~*~ 

It goes like this, in the end--

They make it. 

Tony stand between him and the terrorists who want them dead, shields him from a hail of bullets, and Steve shields himself, with a round shield Tony made him because even here, he can’t help but give Steve gifts. 

They make it, and Tony torches the camp, a vicious gleam in his eyes as it goes up in flames and explosions, as he catches Steve close and throws them both into the sky. 

They make it and they plummet to the earth, a shield to cushion their fall and a flurry of sand to mark their landing and Tony rolls them, eyes anxious as he stares down at Steve, brilliant and beautiful and alive, and Steve kisses him. 

~*~ 

It goes like this, after--

They walk. Tony keeps shooting him these curious searching kind of stares and Steve ignores them, ignores him, except to keep them moving, and prays their moving in the right direction. 

Once, because Tony is stumbling and distracted and talking will keep him focused, Steve asks, “Why a shield?” 

Tony smiles, a tiny thing, “Because you’ve always been my shield.” 

They walk and Tony stumbles, and when he doesn’t get up again, Steve carries him. 

They walk and a chopper swoops down, the distinct thumping blades a welcome home song, and Tony makes a noise, inarticulate and grateful, as Rhodes falls out at a dead run and almost rips Tony out of Steve’s arms. 

Bucky is a step or two behind, face lined with exhaustion and fear and the grip his brother has on him, when he hugs Steve, is startling and reassuring both, and Tony’s gaze finds him, over Rhodes’ shoulder and Bucky’s and he feels impossibly close and a million miles away. 

~*~ 

It goes like this--

He has spent a year, watching Tony, and he knows, he  _ knows _ what he looks like, mindless with pleasure and laughing with friends and preforming for strangers. He knows what Tony looks like when he’s sleep soft and when he’s horny and when he’s terrified. 

But he’s never seen him as pretty as  _ this. _

As pretty as when Steve has him home again, safe and healthy, when he has pet a despondent DUM-E and reassured a worried JARVIS and hugged a sobbing Pepper. 

As pretty as when Steve has fed him cheeseburgers and washed his hair and the blood from his fingers and held him through a trembling panic attack, humming soft until Tony could breath again. 

As pretty as when Steve had him stretched out on their bed, naked, still bruised, lips plush and wet and panting, body rocking onto the fingers in his ass, eyes shinning up and fixed on Steve. 

As pretty as when Tony is utterly  _ his.  _

_ ~*~  _

It goes like this--

They go on. 


End file.
